Wading into presidential politics, President Barack Obama on Thursday promoted his brand of middle-class economics by drawing sharp contrasts with "mean" Republicans in a state whose GOP governor was preparing to enter the vast 2016 presidential field.

Loud but hardly universal catcalls from Republicans underscored the obstacles and opportunities ahead as U.S. and Cuban leaders announced an opening of embassies in Havana and Washington and a resumption of diplomatic relations severed the year President Barack Obama was born.

The superintendent at the prison where two killers broke out has been placed on leave along with his security chief and 10 other staff members amid an internal investigation into how the inmates pulled it off, a state official said Tuesday.

Police antagonized crowds who gathered to protest in Ferguson after Michael Brown's death last summer, violated free-speech rights and made it difficult to hold officers accountable, according to a Justice Department draft report that found across-the-board flaws in law enforcement's response.

President Barack Obama is aiming to use the momentum from a recent Supreme Court victory for his health care law to change the conversation from talk about undoing his signature domestic achievement to talk about how to improve it.

Two convicted killers who staged a complicated prison break together and then spent more than two weeks roaming in thick New York woods finally split up when one man decided his companion was slowing him down, going their separate ways a few days before one was shot and the other captured, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.